Cruella de Vil, Voldemort and the 25 greatest movie villains of all-time

23. Agent Smith

Throughout the Matrix Trilogy, the one constant was Agent Smith. As the primary antagonist of the movies, he was an AI program designed to maintain order and keep people connected to the machines ruling their lives. He had one goal and purpose and nothing was going to get in his way.

The thing about Agent Smith is that even though he may be programmed with one objective, it quickly becomes clear that he is a bit corrupted. Not only does he not like the humans he is supposed to be keeping subjugated to the machines, but his speech about hating “this place” was enough to add more to his character than we could have ever imagined.

As far as being effective as a villain, it is the fact that Agent Smith hates what he does, but does it anyway that makes him great as a bad guy. He works for an oppressive regime and he does it because he seems to have no choice. And that makes him rather scary, because he not only despises the people he is already keeping down, but he doesn’t even like what he is doing, so his motives are much less clear and concise than any other bad guy.

Sometimes we forget that Agent Smith is a villain because of the type of movies the Matrix Trilogy represent, but the reality is that he was essentially a soldier in the war against humanity, and he fought that war without any real loyalties because he was essentially an AI program. And this is what makes him a scary dude. (Thanks to Hugo Weaving, Agent Smith definitely goes down as one of the greats, and it has a lot to do with the way he presented the character.)